Cheat Sheet

Flakes have already begun to fall in the Washington D.C. area, but the Mid-Atlantic region can expect far more than flurries over the weekend with an estimated two to three feet of snow. The storm will likely move north into Philadelphia by Friday night and will continue northward into New York City by Saturday morning. Heavy snow will continue throughout Saturday and is predicted to stop by evening. Flights are likely to be grounded during the night and into Sunday and both car and train travel will probably be affected as well. Areas of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey will get over a foot of snow, while other northern and eastern portions of the Mid-Atlantic states will receive between two and three feet. New York City will be the least affected, expecting two to four inches. The snow may also hit the Ohio Valley. Blizzard warnings are currently in effect for parts of New Jersey, Delaware, Washington, and Baltimore.

A better-than-expected jobs report wasn't enough to keep the Dow Jones swimming above a crucial mental threshold. The index dipped below 10,000 on Friday morning for the first time since November. But it didn't stop there: The selloff continued into the afternoon, with the Dow briefly falling under 9,900 before recovering a bit. The unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent in January, the lowest level since last August; but, the job-loss figures for December also almost doubled to 150,000 from an earlier estimate of 85,000.

Another piece of crucial liberal legislation may fall victim to a Republican filibuster: Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has said that financial-regulation reform is at an “impasse” after talks with his Republican counterpart on the Senate Banking Committee, Richard Shelby (the same man who has placed a hold on every single one of President Obama’s nominees until he gets a pork project restored in Alabama), stalled. The main sticking point is how strong to make a consumer-protection agency, with Shelby wanting to water it down.

We hope he made a backup copy: A judge has ordered John Edwards' former aide, Andrew Young, to hand over a “personal” videotape that Edwards made with his former mistress Rielle Hunter. The judge held Young in contempt of court, but declined to arrest him. The contempt ruling will be lifted if Young hands over the video by Wednesday.

Bill O’Reilly posted the unedited version of his interview with Jon Stewart so his viewers could see that the edited version was a “fair cut.” John Cook at Gawker writes, “If by ‘fair cut’ O'Reilly means ‘cut in a manner that left some of Stewart's best lines, most effective arguments, and most convincing evidence out of the interview and hidden from the broadcast audience,’ then he's absolutely right.” Best of all is when Stewart gets O’Reilly to admit that Barack Obama believes in “tyranny and socialism” and then wonders, “How many tyrants do you know that really suffer because they can’t get cloture?” His critique of Fox News was also significantly edited down, and the unedited version includes attacks on Gretchen Carlson and Neil Cavuto.

MSNBC has obtained thousands of pages of emails from Alaska that show Todd Palin was deeply involved in the state’s governance while his wife was governor. He was involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public-employee unions, read over background checks on a corporate CEO, voiced his opinions on state-board appointments, and passed confidential financial information from his oil-company employer to a state attorney, among other things. 243 emails remain confidential, and they cover topics that include how to reply to “media questions about Todd Palin’s work and potential conflict of interests”; other emails are heavily redacted. One email shows that Palin coached her staff on how to disguise the amount of electrical work needed to install a tanning bed in her mansion.

After a 15-hour journey on the FedEx Panda Express, famous furry ambassadors Tai Shan and Mei Lan arrived in Chengdu to throngs of photographers and a welcoming ceremony. The pandas returned to China to uphold a deal with the U.S. which stated the animals would return to their country of ownership when they reached 2 years old; but after their long journey together, they will now part ways. Tai Shan, of the famed YouTube video where the cub sneezes, will be taken to Wolong's Bifengxia Panda Base, and Mei Lan will stay in Chengdu at a breeding center. Both pandas, however, will go through a month-long quarantine to adjust to their new surroundings, and will be on a strict, bamboo-only diet.

This sounds like the best idea since Rush Limbaugh hosted Monday Night Football: A source tells Page Six that Howard Stern is producers’ top choice to replace Simon Cowell on American Idol. Stern’s Sirius XM Radio deal expires in January, and Idol might have the cash to lure him away. However, a second source says that Stern has been sending mixed messages. "We believe this is a ploy to make Sirius pay up and keep him on his huge contract. But if Sirius can't pay him the money he wants, he may negotiate to film Idol on the side."

A New York City socialite allegedly killed her 8-year-old son in what police say was a failed murder-suicide attempt at a luxury Manhattan hotel Friday. Police found 49-year-old Gigi Jordan on the floor of her Peninsula hotel room shortly before noon, “babbling incoherently.” Her son, who had been dead for day, was “foaming at the mouth” face-up on the floor and prescription pills were found scattered throughout the room, police sources say. The child reportedly appeared to have died from an overdose. Jordan was reportedly distraught over her failed marriage when she checked into the hotel on Wednesday night with her son, Jude. Though she did not leave the room since checking in, according to police, Jordan allegedly sent emails to an aunt in Belgium in which she threatened to kill herself and her son. The aunt contacted the NYPD, prompting them to trace her to the Peninsula.

Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota and grandson of its founder, apologized to the public during a very rare news conference on Friday—the company’s first since its massive global recall over sticky gas pedals. Toyoda said the company is still figuring out what to do about the recently publicized defects in the Prius model, and promised to form a committee to look into the problems. "I offer my apologies for the worries," he said, acknowledging that the “crisis” has "many customers wondering whether their cars are OK." He pleaded with reporters to "please believe me. We always put customers first." The automaker is now launching a probe into the Lexus HS250h, a luxury hybrid model in Japan. The car uses the same brake system as the Prius.

Trouble at Charlie Sheen’s home that he wasn’t responsible for? That appears to be the case after the troubled actor’s car was driven off a cliff. Police got a call around 4 a.m. from the car’s OnStar-style alert system, and around the same time Sheen called police to say that his Mercedes-Benz had been stolen. No one was found in or around the car.

The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 9.7 percent in January, the lowest level since last August and deeper than analysts expected, according to Labor Department figures released on Friday. But—surprise!—there's bad news too. While payrolls fell by a mere 20,000 in January, the job-loss figures for December almost doubled, adjusted from a loss of 85,000 to a loss of 150,000. And for the first time, the Labor Department also released data on earnings and weekly hours: In January, the average work week rose to 33.9 hours compared with 33.8 hours in December and weekly earnings increased to $761.06 from $757.46 over the same period.

Photographs of Marilyn Monroe, taken nine months before her death, were unveiled on Friday after being hidden away in a private archive for more than 45 years. Photographer Len Steckler shot the photographs in December 1961 at the apartment of their friend, poet Carl Sandburg. Four single images and two triptych will be sold, plus 250 prints of each piece. Monroe is wearing sunglasses and a short-sleeve dress, and is seen talking to Sandburg. "It was serendipitous with these two icons in their moment and me there with my camera," Steckler said. The photos prices range between $1,999 and $3,999.

Maybe it's time to revisit the Senate's arcane rules, which allow any individual senator to block any presidential appointee on a whim. With dozens of government posts still unfilled, Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama is reportedly throwing a historically unprecedented temper tantrum by placing a hold on at least 70 presidentially nominated jobs. Shelby's office will not talk to reporters about the reported move, which can be undertaken anonymously, but according to Congress Daily the lawmaker has clashed with the White House over a $40 billion military contract whose recipient is threatening to scrap a planned factory in Mobile, Alabama. Holds force the Senate to break a filibuster, which requires 60 votes and can slow Congressional business to a crawl even if the vote succeeds.

It doesn't seem right that Jesus and Madonna should split. And apparently, it's not true. The New York Daily News reports that Jesus Luz and the material girl are still an item, despite reports they ended their yearlong affair. The pair attended the London premiere party for A Single Man on Monday, and according to an unnamed source, "they were all over each other and were even kissing in front of everyone," although Luz left early, leaving Madonna free to chat up ex-husband Guy Ritchie.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

After recommendations from the Pentagon's Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and a successful vote to include the morning after pill on the list of drugs that military facilities should stock, officials announced the Department of Defense will begin making the pill available in its hospital and clinics around the world. It's the latest step taken by the Obama administration to reverse women's health policies made during George W. Bush's administration, and fulfills a request from 2002 by women's health advocates. "It's a tragedy that women in uniform have been denied such basic health care," said Nancy Keenan of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "We applaud the medical experts for standing up for military women."

A bill championed by President Obama that was once thought to be an easy sell in Congress has turned into a difficult vote thanks to a major lobbying campaign by the country's largest student lenders and the prospect of a Republican filibuster. The bill would take billions of dollars in subsidies to student loans that currently are given to private lenders and instead hand them directly to students. Sallie Mae, a company that doled out $22 billion in student loans last year, spent $8 million on lobbying in the same period while others spent millions more, The New York Times reports. Private lenders say they provide useful counseling to their clients, but the White House contends the money could be used to fund even more programs to help students pay for college. “We anticipated this,” Arne Duncan, the Education secretary, told the Times. “They’ve had a sweet deal. They’ve had this phenomenal deal that taxpayers have subsidized, and that’s a hard thing to give up.”

AP Photo

President Obama is ready to move forward with health-care legislation, calling Thursday for talks and a resolution with Republicans so the bill can move to Congress. His request comes on the heels of Democrats losing their supermajority when Scott Brown was sworn into the Senate, and Obama says Democratic leaders will now work on compromises to health-care bills passed by the House and Senate last year, then move to high-level talks with Republicans. "If Congress decides we're not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, after all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not," the president said.

Acting like a typical teenager was enough to merit a death sentence for a girl in Turkey—from her relatives no less. Turkish police said they uncovered the dirt grave of a 16-year-old buried alive by family members who murdered her for talking to boys, the Guardian reports. Soil was found in the body's lungs, indicating the body was buried alive. Southeastern Turkey, where the crime was committed, has faced a number of "honor killings" in the past, in which women are killed by family and neighbors for violating extreme standards of decency.

The ice between India and Pakistan may be melting. A Delhi official recently told the BBC that India proposed talks between the two countries' foreign ministers and Pakistani officials are reportedly seeking clarification on the substance of the negotiations, with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi pushing for the resumption of a "comprehensive dialogue" on everything from the troubled region of Kashmir to terrorism. India and Pakistan began a formal dialogue in 2004, but India broke off diplomatic contact with Pakistan in 2008 after the attack on Mumbai appeared linked to Pakistani militant groups. The U.S. would welcome increased diplomatic contact between the two countries, which is seen as vital to the security of the region.

Is Sarah Palin paying all her property taxes? Evidently, Palin co-owns some land in rural Alaska, and while $156.13 of property taxes were paid on the land, nothing has been paid on the two-story house-sized cabins, workshop, and sauna recently built on the property. It's unclear whether that is actually Palin's fault. Her attorney contends that it is the job of the local tax assessor to appraise the property and send out the bill, but the Matanuska-Susitna Borough assessor says that state law requires property owners to report errors or omissions in their tax assessments, which means the omission may be Palin's responsibility. For her part, Palin hasn't deviated from her usual script on such stories; her spokeswoman called the affair "another blatant attempt to manufacture a story about the Palins following more defamatory swipes."

For the third time this week, terrorists targeted a Shiite pilgrimage in Iraq, killing at least 32 people and wounding 154 others. Two car bombs went off in the city of Karbala, and the attacks took place during the culmination of the pilgrimage. A car bomb went off near one of Karbala’s three main entrances, sending pilgrims running down the highway, where a suicide bomber in a vehicle was waiting.

Attorney General Eric Holder has not entirely given the left the change from Bush that it desired—a former Bush administration lawyer says Holder has preserved about 85 percent of Bush’s counterterrorism policies—but in one area, the break is clear: trying terrorist suspects in criminal courts. “I don’t apologize for what I’ve done,” Holder tells The New Yorker. “History will show that the decisions we’ve made are the right ones.” Holder hits back at his critics over the handling of the attempted Christmas Day bombing, noting that every single terrorist suspect arrested inside the U.S. was treated as a civilian criminal. Holder says he’s “distressed” that people “who know better” say courts aren’t up to trying terrorists. “If Giuliani was still the U.S. Attorney in New York, my guess is that, by now, I would already have gotten 10 phone calls from him telling me why these cases needed to be tried not only in civilian court but at Foley Square.”